Gradient Bars

Gradient Bars is a plugin dedicated to Paint.net users, giving them the possibility to generate gradient bars and configure several settings. Its options are intuitive enough to be tackled with ease not only by experienced users, but also by beginners.

Easy to set up and access

Installing this utility is a simple task, since all you have to do is copy the downloaded DLLs to the "Effects" folder of Paint.net's installed directory and restart the image editor if it was already launched.
After opening the "Render" submenu of the "Effects" menu, you can easily spot the add-on by the small icon that resembles the piece of a puzzle, which is an indicator for all external extensions in this application.

Draw gradient bars and customize preferences

The default gradient is immediately rendered during the preview and you can tinker with settings when it comes to the bar alignment, scale, width, spacing and angle.
This can be done either by carefully adjusting sliders until you obtain the desired effect, entering the numerical measurements, or by clicking on two arrow buttons to increase or decrease this number. Anti-alias can be enabled or disabled, while the gradient bars can be randomized with the click of a button.

Evaluation and conclusion

The gradient bars were quickly created in the preview while tweaking their properties, as well as after committing the modifications. The plugin didn't cause Paint.net to hang, crash or show error messages.
Although the add-on hasn't been updated for a considerable amount of time, it successfully integrated with the most recent version of the photo processing tool in our tests. Unfortunately, Gradient Bars doesn't have built-in transparency to be able to seamlessly blend it with photos, thus stretching out this particular task when resorting to other means.